Electronic devices often include displays for presenting information to a user. A typical electronic device with a display includes a substantial bezel (or border) on the front face of the device around the display. As such, a rigid (e.g., glass) backplane in the display stack can extend to the bezel, but can otherwise stop short of the edges of the electronic device, leaving room for additional components to be situated behind the bezel.
To make the display appear “borderless,” the aforementioned rigid backplane of the display stack can be replaced with backplane made of a flexible material (e.g., a polymer), which can then be wrapped around one or more edges of the electronic device, thereby eliminating the need for a bezel or border on the front face. However, as design trends for electronic devices progress to thinner and thinner dimensions, the extent to which the thickness of the device can be reduced is constrained by the bend radius of the flexible backplane in the aforementioned borderless configuration. That is, if the flexible backplane is wrapped around an edge of the electronic device at a radius of curvature that is too small, elements of the flexible backplane (e.g., thin film transistor (TFT) traces) can fracture or otherwise fail, rendering at least a portion of the display inoperable. This constraint causes borderless displays to be thicker than necessary.